In this WrestleTalk News, Goldberg returns to WWE, Nia Jax causes controversy around
vaccines once again, my review of SmackDown, Tempest’s review of Rampage and more!
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos, so you
get to see more of this.
Me reunited with my baby, the Jam That Jampionship.
The Tribal Pete, back on top of WrestleTalk, as it should be.
Acknowledge Pete.
I’ll be talking about Goldberg’s return in my review of SmackDown a little later in
the video, but first let’s talk about science.
You know what’s great?
Science.
You know who disagrees with that?
Nia Jax.
Some of you may remember some controversial comments Jax made on her Instagram last year.
Jax rattled some cages by saying “The Covid Vaccine is 90% effective after 8 months of
development, when the flu vaccine is 40% effective after 70 years of development.
I’ll go with my immune system, as it’s 99.9% effective.
God made my immune system and I trust him the most.”
Needless to say Nia Jax is not a doctor.
However, on Friday she doubled down on her stance and then quadrupling down on it in
the most inconceivable way possible.
Nia Jax responded to a tweet criticizing her Instagram comments, saying “Hahaha!
I stand by that too.
Honey, if you really think that all your favorites don’t feel the same as I do, you’re sadly
mistaken.
I know a lot of people in many professional sports that just paid & got a real card from
a doctor..sooooo” That’s Illegal!
You can’t do that.
And I would think you wouldn’t want to broadcast such things on Twitter of all places.
To Jax’s indrecibly stupid point, there have been top tier athletes who have been
caught using fake vaccine passports, such as Evander Kane in the NHL or Antonio Brown
in the NFL.
However, what Jax failed to mention is that when you do this you will be severely punished
because faking a medical document is not a good thing to do.
Nia Jax was released by WWE last year and she recently revealed in an interview with
Renee Paquette that Vince McMahon told her she wouldn’t be able to fulfill some of
her contractual duties because of her decision to not get vaccinated.
Jax has also stated that she doesn’t have any intention of returning to wrestling, so
it seems the most we’ll hear from her will be on social media.
Also active on social media has been Tony Khan, who has been teasing something big coming
for AEW.
Having changed his location to Forbidden Door on Twitter, he also tweeted saying “The
big announcement for Wednesday’s Dynamite that we referenced on #AEWRampage (a free
agent debut) and the person walking through the Forbidden Door are one and the same.
They’re walking in the door, signing a contract, and then slamming the door shut Wednesday
on #AEWDynamite!”
Shane McMahon to AEW confirmed.
With all the free agents now in the pool, it should be a very exciting time for AEW
indeed.
Meanwhile in WWE, we have Goldberg.
Again.
After that though, we’ll most likely be getting Reigns vs Lesnar at WrestleMania for
the Universal Championship.
However WWE may be reverting to an old plan and they may make it a title vs title match
to include the WWE title as well.
Lesnar had only just lost the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble, and then won the men’s
match, but he’s now also inside the Chamber match for the Championship in a couple of
weeks in Saudi Arabia.
According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, several members of the
WWE creative team believe Vince McMahon will end up going with a title vs title match at
Mania, hence why Lesnar was added to the Chamber match.
Meltzer also noted that both Heyman and Lesnar are pushing for this to happen, and with that
much clout behind it…yeah we’re probably getting that aren’t we?
And now it’s time for my review of SmackDown, in about 5 minutes.
The first eight minutes of this show was a recap of the Royal Rumble, Roman Reigns’
entrance, and a recap of Reigns vs Rollins.
Good start everyone.
Paul Heyman was alongside Reigns once again, and he explained that it wasn’t some long
convoluted plan, he really did tell Reigns how he felt, and Reigns punished him for it,
and he deserved it.
But he realised at the Royal Rumble, that he shouldn’t have been protecting Reigns
from Lesnar, he should have been protecting Lesnar from Reigns.
This honestly makes a lot of sense, it fits with Heyman’s character motivation and it
shows some nice character development, even if we did end up in the same place we started.
This was all very good stuff, and a great way to start the show.
Oh wait what’s that?
Oh.
Right, yeah.
Then out came Goldberg.
Goldberg said he acknowledges Roman…as his next victim.
Oh sick burn Bill.
He says Roman’s next, and then later in the show it says it’s official, it’s Roman
vs Goldberg at Elimination Chamber.
Yknow, Goldberg coming back and waltzing straight into title matches is one thing on its own,
but him coming back every time and just saying “it’s me now, I get a shot” with no
story at all makes this all so much worse.
If there was a storyline reason for him wanting one, maybe he came out and said last time
you were Universal Champion, we were supposed to fight at WrestleMania, which was another
time when Goldberg just came out and said me next, but let’s ignore that.
We never got to have that match, so now’s the time.
Reigns can put up a fight, saying he doesn’t want the match, Goldberg hasn’t earned the
match, and then Goldberg can maybe earn his way into that match.
Obviously not through wrestling, why would they do that, but come up with something,
anything to give this some substance.
Goldberg could physically torment Paul Heyman until Reigns relents and gives him the match,
furthering how much Reigns cares about Heyman even though he’s just taken him back under
his wing.
It gets over other characters in the story rather than just “and now here’s a match”
with no explanation for it.
It’s happened time after time after time with Goldberg and it got old in 2020, let
alone in 2022.
You might have been fooled into thinking that with the Royal Rumble would come changes to
SmackDown’s weekly show.
Not so.
Because next we got Ricochet vs Ridge Holland.
After three weeks of Sheamus and Ridge beating Ricochet and Cesaro respectively…Ricochet
won in a couple of minutes.
Ok.
And then after an ad break it was a tag match of Ricochet & Cesaro vs Sheamus & Ridge.
Much like last week.
And much like last week, Ridge pinned Cesaro.
Again.
We then got Jimmy Uso vs Erik of the Viking Raiders ahead of their tag team title match
at Elimination Chamber.
This match lasted one minute and twenty seconds, and Jimmy Uso won.
Ok.
We then got a recap of Natalya vs Aliyah from three weeks ago.
Then we got a recap of Natalya vs Aliyah from two weeks ago.
Then we got Natalya vs Aliyah.
And you know what we’ve got next week?
Natalya vs Aliyah.
This show is something else.
Aliyah won this encounter via countout.
Ok.
Drew Gulak and Shotzi were together backstage, before Drew McIntyre walked past them.
Pat McAfee on commentary said “Is that Drew Gulak?!
And Shotzi?!”
and then Michael Cole said “Is that Drew McIntyre?!”
Yes, it is.
Why are you so unsure about that?
McIntyre came out to the ring to say he came second in the Royal Rumble, but that’s not
important right now because he wants to get back at Corbin & Moss, despite getting back
at Corbin & Moss at the Rumble already.
He made Moss tell a joke at swordpoint, and then hit him with a Claymore.
Honestly, this was one of the better jokes Moss has told.
But that doesn’t mean it was good.
We then got a recap, god there were a lot of those on this show, of Sami Zayn getting
thrown off the Jackass Forever premiere, and then says he’s getting an Intercontinental
Championship match in two weeks against Shinsuke Nakamura.
The champ in question then had a Championship Contender’s match, despite already having
a number one contender, against Jinder Mahal, which Nakamura won in a couple of minutes.
We then got a recap of the opening segment, an ad break, an ad for WrestleMania, a recap
of Naomi & Sonya Deville’s rivalry in the Rumble, a backstage promo where it was announced
that Naomi would be facing Charlotte Flair next week for the SmackDown Women’s Championship,
and then a video package for Goldberg, and then Big E & Kofi Kingston came out for their
tag match, and then an ad break, and then Bianca Belair got to chat with Jackie Joyner-Kersee
for Black History Month, and then a picture recap of the Rumble, and then the announcement
of Drew McIntyre vs Madcap Moss at Elimination Chamber, and then Natalya backstage says she’s
going to tell Aliyah about their match next week, and then doesn’t after Xia Li comes
out of the women’s locker room.
Between the bell ringing to signal the end of Shinsuke vs Sami, and the bell ringing
to start New Day vs Los Lotharios, there was exactly 12 minutes of WWE programming, not
including two ad breaks.
In that time, we had two backstage segments.
When I say that nothing happens on this show, I mean that nothing happens on this show.
But then, from out of absolutely nowhere, we got New Day vs Los Lotharios, and this
was a really fun match.
They got given time, they had some great storytelling, very fun action, lots of nearfalls, and a
climactic finish.
So you do know how to structure a match!
Do it more often please, this was great.
New Day won with the Midnight Hour.
And then of course we got a recap of Ronda Rousey at the Rumble, and then Charlotte Flair
came out for the main event segment.
Sonya Deville joined her in the ring, and said that Rousey had chosen Becky Lynch for
WrestleMania.
Wow, that seems like an anticlimactic way to announce that sort of thing Sonya.
And then she said that Charlotte now gets to choose her WrestleMania opponent.
Alright hold up.
Charlotte wanted to win the Royal Rumble so she could choose her opponent, but she didn’t
win.
So why is she now being given the power to choose her opponent?
I shouldn’t need to explain to you why this is bad storytelling.
Charlotte then says she picks Sasha Banks.
Wow, that seems an anticlimactic way to announce that sort of thing Charlotte.
But then out came Ronda Rousey, who after telling the fans on Raw that they all suck
and she hates them, was all smiles and high fiving fans on the way to the ring.
Oh no, it’s babyface Ronda.
Everybody run!
She said that she actually picks Charlotte for WrestleMania, wow what a twist, never
saw that coming, and then Charlotte said her title is cuter than Ronda’s baby.
Sonya then tried to get involved saying that she runs the show, and then tried to attack
Ronda for some reason?
Ronda then attacked Sonya back - but you can’t do that Ronda!
She had her jacket on!
You can’t touch her when she has her jacket on, remember?
Can’t even follow the very basic and not very stupid rules.
I am not excited about the idea of Ronda vs Charlotte.
I am not excited about the idea of Roman vs Goldberg.
I am not excited about the idea of Drew McIntyre vs Madcap Moss.
On this two hour show, there were one and a half things I liked about it.
New Day vs Los Lotharios was really good, and the opening promo started off really well,
and then deflated thanks to a Goldberg puncture.
If that tag match wasn’t on here, this would be an easy 1/5, but with it…I might bump
it to a 2.
But it’s honestly only just a 2.
And now here’s my Wiseman Tempest with his
review
of AEW Rampage.